My brother just got a new posistion at CarDomain.com (aka Soundomain.com) as a merchandising head guy. I’m not up on what the actual position does, except I know he will be in charge of the new products and the desciptions they get on their online store as well as work with the tech department on support calls.
Sean worked basically as the tech manager at CarDomain.com. If a call came in or a product was returned because it didn’t work he worked with the support dept and the customer to determine the problem and resolve it. (Which can be a challenge when you get a customer who thinks they are a “pro” and a company who doesn’t research every make and model vehicle). The market for these parts and hobbies have really gone from a specialized business to a mass market hobby.

I won’t go into the marketing and support details, but for an indiviaul non-NYSE company to show its head above big blue (best buy) or Circuit Shitty (Circuit City), its pretty amazing. CarDomain.com offers more than a shopping environment, they offer a place where you can customize your car or truck and show it off in a community that supports your addiction…er..hobby. Even if your car is bone stock, their members will support and encourage you to keep at it. Rock and Race on CarDomain.com. Keep it coming!

Not much new with the house today. We did get our garage door installed, that should help with inside temperature a little bit.
I finally had time in the daylight to get a really good look at the walls and ceilings. I found a few spots in the drywall that need touching up, and one corner in a bathroom that is bowed. I told one of the guys about it, they said they’d fix it. I’ll keep my eye on those things to make sure they get it done right.
I asked about interior paint, they said maybe by the end of the week, but definitly by next week. 🙂

Bad news on the karate front…I re-injured my knee on Saturday sparring (my knees have always been bad from years of shooting). It was pretty bad over the weekend, I could barely walk on it, but it feels a little better today. Took it easy in class tonight. 7 weeks left until my test (yikes), so hopefully I can get it rested up and healed by test time.

We moved to Fairfax, VA from Brandon, Florida when dad got assigned a job at the Pentagon. This is probably where we had the most fun growing up. School was a short 9/10ths of a mile walk or bike ride. The community pool was one street over. We had a lot of friends in the neighborhood as well.
On this map:
Here are the points of interest:
1) Our house. Catty-corner (er..diagonally to the left) lived Michelle and Nicole something or other.
2) The pool. We literally lived here during the summer. Sean and I would show up when it opened and leave when it closed. Best babysitter my parents ever had 😉
3) This is the intersection my mom worked as a crossing guard as. People thought she was a cop!
4) This is Rick Dean’s house. He is the only person from Fairfax I have heard from since we left there. Still have him in my AIM contact list too! There was a nice lake in our neighborhood and we used to get there from the creek by Rick’s house.
5) This was our friend Mark’s house. His dad worked for the Library of Congress.

Got some more pictures of the shutters and siding in the daytime. The shutters look brown or black in the pictures, but they are actually maroon. The front door will be maroon once it’s painted as well.

Also have some pictures of the ceiling. Since I hadn’t been out in the daytime in about a week, I never noticed that it was finished.

I again, went out after dark because they were there working really late. The first thing I noticed was that there were shutters on the house! They also started the installation of the front door molding and some of the trim near the roof. Then, to my great surprise, I saw that they had done siding. And not only started it, but finished it (from what I can tell in the dark)! They also must have sanded the drywall and added a coat of sealant to it. It feels smooth (I can’t feel where any of the taping/mudding is). My dad said that the coat of milky-looking paint-like stuff (I couldn’t really tell what it was b/c it was pitch black except for my camera flash) is the last step of the drywall process and they should be painting next. YAY!

Please excuse the pictures, they are really dark. I’m going out with my mom tomorrow afternoon, so I’ll get a lot better pictures then.

No, the question is where…not when. When is to be determined 🙂 I decided to play on Google Maps to see what I could come up with. I’m going to be posting these out of order, but I will include the years 🙂
Torrejon AFB, Spain – This was not easy as google didn’t have a record of it, no matter how I typed it into the search box. However, I did find the long/lat of the runway and was able to figure it out from there. Here is the Google Map Link
Click the image below to view a map marked with the following areas of intrest:
1) This was where our little house was. The parking lot behind it was the Hospital.
2) This is where the BX, Commisary, movie theatre and ice cream parlor are/were.
3) This is the pool we spent all summer at. Bowling Alley is also here. Spent a lot of quarters there.
4) This is the elementary school.
5) Can’t really see it, but this is the high school.
6) This is where I got into my first fight. I kicked the guys butt. He picked the fight.
7) This is the TLQ (Temp. Living Quarters…basically a hotel) and the Officer’s Club (O-Club).
I think the area between 1 & 4 is my dad’s office area. (without the orange roof, next block).

Paul and I went out at 8:30pm last night. They had what looked like a propane heater in there to dry the mudding on the drywall. That provided some light (and warmth!) downstairs, but upstairs was pretty dark. We used the flash on the camera to get around, and suprisingly got some great pictures. They cleaned up their drywall mess from yesterday and taped/mudded all rooms and ceilings. I guess the next step when they finish this will be paint.

Paul and I are trying to put together a color scheme for the house. We’re thinking yellows/tans/sage greens, etc, earthy colors. We went with some reds in our last house, but I think we might veer away from that in this house, make it more livable for longer. Anyone have suggestions for the guest room? It’ll be your room if you come and stay!

We’d like to completely paint it before we move in. There’s really no sense waiting, since there won’t be any furniture, so it’ll be easy access to all the walls. Plus, we have a place to live and don’t have any sort of deadline for moving out to worry about.

Wow they are fast! The drywall for the house was finished when I went out last night. It looks so good, so much like a house now. It looks like they did a really good job. No big gaps between pieces, nice corners and cutting around the sockets and switches.

Well, this weekend I got up really early (6am!) and drove to Dayton, OH to meet up with my ride and caravan up to Detroit, MI for the North American International Auto Show. This is my third year going to the show with friends from the local Cinci/Dayton DSM club.
It was a lot of fun, very tiring (total of 9 hours of sleep from Friday – Sunday night), and always worth it. I will have some photos online tonight, but probably won’t get them all up (think about 75+ and a couple short videos). They will go up on my other gallery.
-pc